A HERMIT IN THE HIMALAYAS
my exercises in stillness; I need fear neither feebleness nor degenera-
tion. On the contrary, I have everything to gain, to wit, contact
with that vital creative Force which has really made me. Such
contact may even impart something of that unique force to my
conscious self. Yet outwardly there may still remain nothing but
serenity. The world could go on regarding me as insignificant. That
would not matter in the least. I would sense the unleashment and act
with its co-operation from a profounder plane than the physical.
Ancient people have always possessed their fables of such
possibilities. No race but has had its exaggerated stories of sages,
wise men, wizards, magicians and prophets who have forced both
men and Nature to move at their will. Where they had unselfish
motives they were good, where they had grossly selfish ones they
were classed as evil.
To throw the world back into stupid ancient beliefs and revive
superstition would be retrogressive, but to throw the world back into
what was true in those beliefs could only be progressive.
Applied science has shown the way. It throws an invisible beam
of subtle electrical rays by wireless into space; the rays move swiftly,
silently and unseen; and lo!—aeroplanes travel pilotlcss hither and
thither, street traffic is controlled by self-working lights, alarm bells
are set ringing self-opening doors are operated, railway signals move
up or down automatically, steamers find their direction accurately
in a fog, and soldiers fall dead from instantaneous electrocution.
In the universal storehouse there are other forces thai) electricity,
which may work just as secretly and just as invisibly and yet be
none the less potent in their own way. Such forces may dwell,
dormant and unused, within man himself.
Whv not?